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Emergency Dead stick landing

Great report on your experience Ryan.

I do not have anything to suggest on dealing with what happened, you handled it well and some very knowledgable people are involved.

Thanks for taking the time write on this forum.
 
Your safety example

has important implications well beyond the specific mechanical issue you faced.

You seem defensive but my friend you?re the one who jumped up on the stage and opened your kimono and that was the right thing to do. In my opinion you were lucky (and that?s a random event) and that hopefully will impress all of us to question, really question, what we?d do if/when we are faced with a similar situation. To many of us would have done what you did me included. You may ultimately save one of our lives which I am confident is your intention sans medical degree.

Being ?judgmental and critical and harda__d? may very well save lives. Put the ?hail fellow well met? stuff in some other warm-fuzzy section because safety is too often a binary situation; live or die.

This is about safety and part of safety is maintaining an ever present, prominent safety consciousness. No one likes getting a #10 boot in their #5 rear-end but that?s exactly what I?d have done were you in my outfit. I would have done that for two primary reasons. First, to dramatically and thus permanently impress upon you to reassess/recalibrate your internal decision making algorithm. The second is to make an example of you to the rest of the aviators; make them think twice as it were. Here?s how I think that works.

Let me use cigarette smoking as an example. Everybody knew smoking was killing people but it wasn?t until our peers ? the public ? made smoking intolerant that we saw a decrease in the smoking population. Peer pressure is an incredible force and it takes an incredible force to override our tendency to make mistakes: to override get-home-itis; to eliminate run it around the pattern and see what happens; to prevent ?hey watch me do this slow roll on takeoff.? On these very pages there has been much written about EAB aircraft accident rates and wrong judgment represents a significant portion of those stats. If we can instill a sense of ?my VAF buddies are looking over my shoulder and what would they say? I sincerely believe we will begin to erode those accident stats.

We have to shout loud, shout long and shout collectively.
 
RickWoodall said:
In Canada as part of our sign off inspection we must disconnect the fuel line from the engine, and test the flow per minute when boost pump is on. I have heard of many doing this during the annual too.
Why, if you know your boost pump puts out 17gph as an example, this will ensure a year or two later, you are still getting lots of flow, that there are no blockages in fuel lines, filters, etc. A bit of a flush out so to speak. Strain the fuel and return to the tanks. Seems like a good idea as I have heard of slosh and also people who had some proseal or even teflon tape (used in error) get into fuel system. A good system flush out, and of course checking gascolator and fuel strainer in FI systems is wise too. I have and will continue to do this annually. It does not test engine driven pump, but does ensure #2 is good to go. On another note, when I painted my plane, I drained tanks and will likely remove sump drains every year or two and again FLUSH out the tanks. Surprising what can end up in the bottom of the tank over time.
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I think this is a great idea and I just added it to my annual condition inspection check list. I would normally only perform fuel flow tests if there are reports of low fuel pressure or other indications of inadequite fuel flow (stumbling, engine quitting momentarily etc). I think performing this test as SOP during annual is good stuff and easily done after filter cleaning.

Is your aircraft talking to you?

http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/safetyalerts/SA_021.pdf
 
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Ryan, I have highlighted a few questions in red relating to this incident that I would like to ask you. See your quote.


MedFlightDoc said:
Flight #1: Nighttime cruise home after picking up my daughter from the grandparents house. Easy flight from Milwaukee Timmerman to Middleton Morey (KMWC to C29). Heading west at 2500', checked in with Madison approach, talking to my daughter when the engine suddenly stumbles and starts to lose significant RPM. I immediately knee jerk thought I had run a tank dry and reach down to switch tanks. As I'm doing so, the engine picks back up and acts as if nothing had happened. So quickly in fact, that I didn't think that the switching of tanks had even kicked in yet. I had almost full tanks, so a dry tank was of course not the culprit. Rest of flight proceeds uneventfully with no issues. Leaving me perplexed. CHT, EGT, mags, RPM's, volts, amps are all normal when I get home and do an extensive check and run up.

Question 1: Do you think it was wise to take to the air again at this point without positive identification of the problem? A decisive and pronounced loss of engine power is an obvious indication that there is something seriously amiss.

Flight #2: The next day, go out to airport in afternoon to check things out again. All is normal. No issues with temps, pressures, run up or static RPM. Ambient temps were in mid 80's (about 83-85 or so). Take off seemed normal until about 250-400' or so when engine stumbles badly, lose significant RPM. I do something I probably should not have (no need to chastise me, I've done enough of it already in the last month) and make the impossible turn and get it back on the runway. I chose this option mainly because I was taking off on 09 at Morey-Middleton (C29) and the city of Middleton and Madison is to the east. I didn't want to go down in the city. At this point however, the engine is still turning over as I sit on the runway and taxi off. The FBO mechanics heard the engine cut, piled into a pick up truck and came racing down the taxiway expecting to find me off the end of the runway in the field to the west.

Question 2: See question 1

I do a runup, and all seems normal now. CHT, EGT, amps, volts, run up and even full static run up are all NORMAL. Taxi to the FBO. We pull the cowl and nothing seems amiss. Sump the gas, no debris or water. Start to think if vapor lock might be the culprit? This aircraft does not have baffling to the gascolator, but does have sleeved fuel lines from the gascolator to engine driven fuel pump to carb.

The mechanics look thru as much as they can over the next day and a half. The fuel vents are clear, gas is not an issue. Everything seems normal. Start it up again and on the ground all the temps and pressures are normal, normal run up, full static run RPM check on both tanks (per the mechanic) were all normal with one exception: there seemed to be low fuel pressure gauge readings of barely 1 psi with the engine driven fuel pump, but would increase to about 4 psi (normal) with the electric boost pump on. Running it up to full power with the electric boost pump on would also then see the fuel pressure gauge drop some but the engine was running normally the entire time with no stumble or dropped rpm. We were starting to think the engine driven fuel pump might be failing, but this scenario seemed unusual (their experience had been that they usually just fail, not a "soft" failure with things still running normally).

This then led to the question of what exactly was going on. We also only had one more day to fly, as the annual was set to expire. The mechanics didn't have it pinned down and it couldn't be reproduced on the ground as everything appeared to be working normally...

I make the decision to make one more test flight to see if we can narrow it down more and get more information as we don't really have enough go on.

Question 3: See question 1.
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MedFlightDoc said:
...for future reference for others I'd be curious to know what others may have done differently to troubleshoot...as we all want to learn from others experiences and maybe help someone out in the future who reads this thread.
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Let's start by recognizing a cold hard fact: everyone who works on airplanes, cars, motorcycles and boats regularly gets a new lesson...usually something not previously seen or considered in their personal experience.

I've seen this one (intermittent, momentary power loss which could not be duplicated on the ground) twice. The first time was a friend's Kitfox. The 582 Rotax had sagged a few times. Much looking did not find a specific cause, and then the problem seemed to disappear. When it came back it was at exactly the wrong place, on takeoff from a short strip. The result was a controlled sink at minimum speed into a forest. My friend did it right, using the 32 knot stall to maximum advantage, and he walked away unharmed.

Postmortem, engine on a bench: it was a tiny piece of plastic flake, perhaps 1/8" diameter and 0.010" thick, which had made it to the fuel entry of one carb. It was apparently swirling around in the bore above the float bowl needle valve, and when the planets aligned just right it could settle on the needle valve passage and block fuel flow. A 582 running on one cylinder will not keep a Kitfox aloft.

I was one of the airport guys who helped look for that sag, and supposedly the most experienced. I felt responsible. That was my lesson.

Fast forward more than a few years...the RV-1 (rightfully) scares **** out of CB with a momentary power sag on departure, 300 feet up and heading out over the trees. You've read the rest of the account. I did all the usual things, including a visual tank inspection, fuel flow measurements, line kink checks, inlet screen, gascolator, uphill ground runups, ad nauseum. Didn't find a single smoking gun, and I was uncomfortable. My learned response was to talk it over with somebody, and in this case the best bet (for a bunch of reasons) was Walt. The process of describing a problem and what you've done, the back and forth of fault proposal and logic review, and the simple act of comparing experiences may be the best way of ferreting out a solution. In this case, almost as an afterthought, Walt said "Hey, it's a long shot, but maybe you should check...", and that was it.

So, in answer to your question, I'd say talk it over with somebody. Somebody as experienced as Walt is a great choice, because he has been around long enough to have gotten more lessons. However, I don't think it has to be someone with more experience. It just needs to be somebody with a set of lessons different from yours.

BTW, right now both you and your mechanics are kicking yourselves about slosh in tanks. It will never happen to any of you again. You've all got the slosh lesson in the bank.
 
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As for the first two point, we couldn't reproduce the problem on the ground, and it had happened at two different phases of flight.

Initially there was serious consideration to vapor lock, to the point of looking up multiple threads on this forum and the problem appearing to be very similar. Relatively warm ambient temps, intermittent and not reproducible.

Taking off on the third flight, the thought was still possibly vapor lock vs a problem with either one of the fuel pumps.

The idea of a fuel line obstruction never occurred to anyone (and many were involved) until after the fact...

The main reason I bring this up now for others to learn.
 
I appreciate you sharing regardless of whether I would proceed in the same manner in a similar situation. Hind sight is 20/20 as they say and actions that seem totally reasonable, or on the otherhand, wildly irresponsible after the fact can, and often do, look different "at the time". I've done plenty of things in my life that afterwards I thought, "wow, that was stupid", but did not clearly appear so at the time.

I may have missed it, but did you post on here about your issue while trouble shooting with AOG? You must take advice given with a grain of salt at times - especially until you learn who's who if you will, but at the very least, having your issue looked at by hundreds of builders, owners, etc with such a diverse background of skill sets would have brought years of experience (I once had a similar engine issue, etc.) to the trouble-shooting game. At the very least, this may have had you looking down a path, that previously, you hadn't considered.
 
APACHE 56 said:
has important implications well beyond the specific mechanical issue you faced.

You seem defensive but my friend you’re the one who jumped up on the stage and opened your kimono and that was the right thing to do. In my opinion you were lucky (and that’s a random event) and that hopefully will impress all of us to question, really question, what we’d do if/when we are faced with a similar situation. To many of us would have done what you did me included. You may ultimately save one of our lives which I am confident is your intention sans medical degree.

Being “judgmental and critical and harda__d” may very well save lives. Put the “hail fellow well met” stuff in some other warm-fuzzy section because safety is too often a binary situation; live or die.

This is about safety and part of safety is maintaining an ever present, prominent safety consciousness. No one likes getting a #10 boot in their #5 rear-end but that’s exactly what I’d have done were you in my outfit. I would have done that for two primary reasons. First, to dramatically and thus permanently impress upon you to reassess/recalibrate your internal decision making algorithm. The second is to make an example of you to the rest of the aviators; make them think twice as it were. Here’s how I think that works.

Let me use cigarette smoking as an example. Everybody knew smoking was killing people but it wasn’t until our peers – the public – made smoking intolerant that we saw a decrease in the smoking population. Peer pressure is an incredible force and it takes an incredible force to override our tendency to make mistakes: to override get-home-itis; to eliminate run it around the pattern and see what happens; to prevent “hey watch me do this slow roll on takeoff.” On these very pages there has been much written about EAB aircraft accident rates and wrong judgment represents a significant portion of those stats. If we can instill a sense of “my VAF buddies are looking over my shoulder and what would they say” I sincerely believe we will begin to erode those accident stats.

We have to shout loud, shout long and shout collectively.
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Is this really necessary for this discussion? :confused: All of your comments about getting in someone's face and making them aware of their shortcomings in front of others for the purpose of
. . .to make an example of you to the rest of the aviators; . . .
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would do nothing except PREVENT anyone from ever wanting to speak out and help others with their experiences. I fail to see any possible good that could come of your actions of playing boot camp drill sergeant with someone in this situation. Little, if any, positives results come from such blatant "in your face" behavior. The recipient of such behavior is much more likely to have such a negative reaction to that kind of behavior that he/she is more likely to completely reject any comments you might give them. Geezzz!!! Are you really advocating that a person opening his soul up for the betterment of his fellow aviators should have to endure public chastisement and humility as the only means by which he, or others, could learn from such an incident? :rolleyes:

By the way, to the OP, I have had two off field landings, both with dead engines. I know the thoughts and emotions you were dealing with very intimately. Great job in dealing with the situation. Even more so, kudos to you for baring your humanity to the unwashed public and penning this incident for all to see. Don't let anyone get in your face and nit pick your actions. You sir deserve much better than that!

Live Long and Prosper!
 
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RVbySDI said:
Is this really necessary for this discussion? :confused: ...Little, if any, positives results come from such blatant "in your face" behavior. ...Don't let anyone get in your face and nit pick your actions. You sir deserve much better than that!

Live Long and Prosper!
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We all come from different backgrounds and environments, so your opinion about "in your face behavior" is just that - your opinion; just like Apache has his. I understand what you're saying, and I agree with it to an extent - possibly even in this case - as yes, we do not want to stifle open discussion. But there is certainly a time and a place for leaving PC talk and beating around the bush behind. Reminds me of the state we're in now, where every child is great and gets a trophy for just showing up. Some of my best learned lessons were from being called a dumb a$$ in front of mixed company.
 
MedFlightDoc said:
no need to be judgmental, I've already done that to myself more than you could.
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MedFlightDoc said:
The main reason I bring this up now for others to learn.
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Guys and Gals, Ryan has been good enough to share this with us to help prevent any future events of the same nature--------please dont beat him up for it.

Ryan, thanks for sharing this, I know it can be hard to tell about such events where you "learn the hard way". Your concern for others is appreciated.
 
I have been trying to figure out how to address one aspect of this account without coming off as “judgmental”.

I’ll not fault the OP for making a "test flight” with a sick airplane – It’s a fairly common (though “last ditch”) process in aircraft maintenance and I’ve done it myself. And like him I did so with eyes wide open and minimized the risk as much as possible (i.e. orbiting the airport). What I can’t get my head around though, is the circumstances surrounding the inability to make the runway after engine failure. The timing of the failure was described as “the worst possible time”. However, to me, the “worst possible time” would be a brief period on initial climbout while too low to turn back, but too high to stop on the departure runway… After that period is past, a landing on the runway should have been assured – with or without an engine operating…

So all that said, again without being judgmental, what factor led you to being out of position when the engine quit? Was it distraction, complacency, an external influence, etc? Your candor is appreciated.
 
Toobuilder said:
I have been trying to figure out how to address one aspect of this account without coming off as ?judgmental?. .....Snipped.......
So all that said, again without being judgmental, what factor led you to being out of position when the engine quit? Was it distraction, complacency, an external influence, etc? Your candor is appreciated.
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I believe the OP explained himself, when he stated...."Then, at probably the worst possible time, getting to pattern altitude or slightly below, about 2 miles from airport (I had drifted out and away while descending)"

MedFlightDoc should be commended for taking the podium to tell his tale. If I ever get the chance to meet him, the libations are on me. Not necessarily for his actions which resulted in no loss of life, or injury. But, for standing in there with the Monday AM Peyton Mannings!
 
APACHE 56 said:
Being ?judgmental and critical and harda__d? may very well save lives. Put the ?hail fellow well met? stuff in some other warm-fuzzy section because safety is too often a binary situation; live or die.

This is about safety and part of safety is maintaining an ever present, prominent safety consciousness. No one likes getting a #10 boot in their #5 rear-end but that?s exactly what I?d have done were you in my outfit. I would have done that for two primary reasons. First, to dramatically and thus permanently impress upon you to reassess/recalibrate your internal decision making algorithm. The second is to make an example of you to the rest of the aviators; make them think twice as it were. Here?s how I think that works.

We have to shout loud, shout long and shout collectively.
Click to expand...

Well at least you could "dress down" the 1st pilot. You'd never have a chance to do the same to the 2nd. The 2nd pilot after witnessing the lecture or sermon would surely never openly air his experience. Now pilots 3-26 fire up and launch.

Knowledge and learning from others that have "F"d up is safety.

In the Marines we used that technique. VAF is a much different demographic.
 
jetjok said:
I believe the OP explained himself, when he stated...."Then, at probably the worst possible time, getting to pattern altitude or slightly below, about 2 miles from airport (I had drifted out and away while descending)"...
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He described what happened, yes, but I'm looking for the reason he was "at or below" pattern altitude 2 miles out. Again, not to play MMQB, but to understand the factors that drove him from a position of relative safety to something less (and "engine out" is not a factor). The OP started out with the plan of staying within glide distance of the runway - I'm just wondering what happened to change that scenario.

I'd think that remaining within a glide distance of the runway would be at or near the top of my priority list... But I've never been in his shoes. If there is a compelling factor that I have not considered, I'd like to add it to my knowledge base - that's all.
 
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Calling the kettle black

Find me even one pilot who has not made some errors. Fuel caps, chalks, tie down, not turned both mags back on, etc etc. How about flyinging into ****, running low on fuel due to winds, or bad planning. Forgot to check for TFR's just once? Left a bolt loose, or a wrench somewhere. Never ever made a mistake that could have turned out badly? Ya, I havent either....:D

We all make mistakes, we all have dumb moments. We all get rushed, tired, etc. Live through them, hone your skills, be honest with yourself and always work to be a better safer pilot.

I have learned lots from this forum and the posters that have the kahunas to air their mistakes. Good job, you make us all better and safer pilots.
 
Frankly, I'm not sure there was a "mistake" here at all. There was some elevated risk, yes, but a mitigation plan was in place to try offset that risk. After the engine failure there was some fine flying, and nobody was hurt. Pretty good result, overall.

The only thing that I'm unclear on is the "too low/too far" aspect. And if that was a result of a lapse in judgment or mistake, so be it. Mistake or otherwise, I think we do need that data point.

And if it is characterized by the OP as a "mistake", then we should accept it with quiet introspection and move on to the other critical element of the story - the cause of the failure in the first place.
 
One thing I did not mention that this last engine stumble/failure occurred at the end of what was turning out to be a normal 30 minute flight: where it was running perfectly as if nothing had ever occurred.

At the moment of the stumble, I was on a modified upwind, having been in a spiral descent over the airport, I was widening it out slightly to get into a decent position to turn cross wind and then downwind. I was actually just south of the airport and about to turn a relatively normal cross-wind when it happened. I was probably at or slightly below pattern altitude.

The FAA questioned me extensively about where I was and what happened at this point. I had three options, Rwy 28 downwind, grass rwy 19 (but ends at a major road and over-run would be disastrous), or Rwy 10.

I think the confounding variable that put me in a bad position was that I had been able to coax the two "surges" out of the engine that lasted a few seconds each before it then finally died. And for a few brief (precious) seconds, I thought I might be ok and it would run. This carried me into a position not quite ideal, on a modified cross wind for rwy 10 with my nose pointed away from the airport when it quit for good. Briefly thought about the farm fields ahead of me, but they were mostly corn (glider pilots will know why that isn't a good option), but I kept the turn going around back towards the airport in those last few seconds.

Try doing an engine out best glide in your RV's. Those short wings don't let you glide like you think. Keeping best glide speed means a pretty good sink rate. Especially when it dies at 600-800 feet.

The FAA guys (and most others I've told this story to, including multiple professional pilots who know a lot more than me) think that it would almost have been better if the engine quit dead the first time, rather than teasing me with a couple of surges for a few seconds at a time, and putting me into a bad position relative to the runway.

I could have put it into the corn, but I'm still not thinking that would have been a good idea. I'm thinking that maybe the gear would have caught quickly and flipped me going 50+ knots...

A mistake? I don't know. Bad timing of events relative to the ground? Maybe.

I do know one thing: I walked away...
 
Ryan,

Just catching up to this; very glad to hear you came through it OK. Sounds like you handled the situation very well indeed.

At one point you mentioned that the boost pump was making loud noises when first turned on; this normally happens when there is no fuel in the line. This might perhaps add to the case for an obstruction, or perhaps air leaking into the line upstream of the pump?

Alan
 
fuel pump noises

You are correct I think.

Right after the engine stumbled, when I switched on the boost pump, it did make a very loud noise (almost like it was cavitating), I shut it off right away and then on again and got the first "surge". It had never made that sound previously.

The next day, with the FAA guys, it made the same sound, but fuel was still coming out of the line at the carb (although much less than we were thinking was normal). Later, as we were digging deeper, we switching tanks, and the sound went away. IE-fuel was in the line.

Thanks,
Ryan
 
MedFlightDoc said:
... I was actually just south of the airport and about to turn a relatively normal cross-wind when it happened. I was probably at or slightly below pattern altitude...
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Just like there are no two RV's that are identical, there is a huge variation in a "normal" pattern...

Do you use the "new normal" (FAA approved, stabilized approach), the "old normal" (i.e. tight, power off, glide approach), or something else?
 
Folks - with all due respect, I think that Ryan has been way more than forthcoming in telling us what happened, and he has essentially said that he got farther out than he wanted. What more do you want? For him to post in bold face that he screwed up?!

As someone who has been pretty open about my own screw-ups here on VAF over the years (including a builder-induced off-airport landing - where I was the builder), I can tell you that this continued "badgering of the witness" does no one any good, because many more folks who have problems WILL NOT POST THEM.

Mike, I am not picking on you - you did great job telling us the story of your multiple bird strikes. It takes a lot of guts to admit your own mistakes publicly, and you stepped up. We all appreciated that. But we all have to remember that no one is under an obligation to share anything more than what they want - and they can go away at any time.

We need an atmosphere that encourages sharing the lessons, not one that makes people go away. Sometimes it is hard to know when to quit asking questions - but you can always use the PM option - and that can encourage someone to come back in public.
 
Patterns

I was trained originally as a glider pilot...Not a B-52 pilot.

Although here at C29 (Morey) we do try and be mindful of the neighbors from a noise standpoint.

Although noise abatement honestly never occurred to me that evening, I was consciously trying to avoid overflying a subdivision of houses on a hill just to the NE of the runway 10-28 (I didn't want to end up THERE!), by keeping it over the highway that runs just to the east of the field (on the other side of the Lexus dealership mentioned in a previous post).

Unfortunately, this then put me in a slightly worse position relative to the runway as I cycled thru the second "surge" and kept the turn going back in towards the runway. It was at about this point (memory is fuzzy) that I realized my speed had decayed as I was trying to trouble shoot and fly at the same time.

So not a B-52 pattern, but modified due to the location of things on the ground.

Ryan
 
MedFlight, I again appreciate you allowing this real life lesson to be a valuable learning tool for so many.

May I suggest one common area to be learned from this is something that can apply to all of us. In our decision making and threat/error analysis, we are always looking at the real world environment, as dynamic and cloaked in shadows as it may be... We attempt to make accurate judgment calls on what we see. There is one area where we can be lured into believing that a previous hazard or threat, though not catastrophic, can be controlled or predicted while trouble shooting or coming up with a solution that goes around the problem. This leads the person into going further down a rabbit hole. This is called "confirmation bias". That's mumbo-jumbo speak for being fooled into a false sense of security in an otherwise unpredictable circumstance and allowing certain assumptions to cover up other hazards.

http://www.flyingmag.com/technique/accidents/dangers-confirmation-bias
http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/aviation:confirmation-bias
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=gWtt_qR1olksOr-qmBYmyQ&bvm=bv.53537100,d.cGE

We have ALL been part and parcel to this error in thinking at one point or many points in our experience. Many of us probably don't even know when it last happened but it's happened to all of us. Most of us have been darn lucky that it resulted in a learning experience without danger. Some of us whistled past the grave yard and never knew it was present while others still never knew what hit them until it was too late.

Honestly, how many times do we read about "RV-X down in XYZ" where the crash resulted in loss of controlled flight due to power interruption or maneuvering failures? MedFlightDoc, you are still to be commended not only for your good aircraft handling skills when it counted but for your desire to know more about how and why the problem occurred. Mostly you are to be commended for attempting to help us all as a group not have to be in the seat and experience what you did. I know this will help others. Yes we can and should all learn from this type of a situation. On the contrary however, anyone attempting to meet this sort of discussion with a lack of ability to find out more about why and how - and just meet the situation with a desire to blame and point fingers... well, that's not the way it works in this type of a situation unless we want to shut down all learning in favor of command and control management. That's not true leadership and it doesn't work in the real world. Too many variables, too diverse of an operation.

Now as far as nuts and bolts, I have to admit I am really interested in what the mechanical findings will show. Thanks again everyone for the learning points.
 
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First and foremost I'm very glad the incident turn out with a walking pilot. :D

Ryan, second, thanks for coming forward with the event and info. Clearly, this kind of narrative starts safety discussions containing many facets, some not so pretty. You are to be commended for "seeing the big picture" so we all may learn from the event.

I too will be adding total fuel flow to my my condition inspections. Thanks Canada! ;)
 
Ironflight said:
Folks - with all due respect, I think that Ryan has been way more than forthcoming in telling us what happened...
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...and with due respect Paul, the speaker may never know exactly what kind of info the audience needs - hence a Q and A session following most presentations.

Far from "badgering", I'm trying to get to the root of a critical element which could have just as easily been the result of an external influence as an outright "oops" on the pilot's part. I gain no pleasure from hearing someone admit when they are wrong, but nailing down the circumstances is a significant bit of information in a safety analysis. And isn't that why we have a "safety" section on this forum? It certainly can't be so that we can tell war stories and pat each other on the back, can it?

Thank you Ryan for your candor. I appreciate the info and will learn from it. Also congratulations on making it though 8 pages without it getting ugly... My birdstrike thread was locked tight in 2 pages due to inappropriate comments.
 
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I am a huge proponent of accident analysis.

In addition to being a pilot I'm also a fairly accomplished technical cave diver.

There are a number of parallels between cave diving and flying. Actually a number of my cave diving buddies are also pilots.

Unfortunately with the type of diving I do we have fatalities. Not frequently, but it does happen. As a group we try really hard to analyze the accident and see if anything can be learned from what happened.

This can be difficult, even brutal at times. I lost a good friend on a dive with me five years ago. Because I felt there was a lot that could be learned from his death, I made sure to get the data out as quickly as possible. I like to think that his mistakes have saved other lives.

Back in the mid-late 1970's cave diving was killing people at an alarming rate. It was so bad that some sheriffs started dynamiting entrances to cave (see Morrison springs), and making cave diving illegal.

Fortunately a combination of better training programs and accident analysis has made a huge difference in the safety of cave diving. So much so that, I personally only know of one cave diving fatality in the last 10+ years that was not either a CCR (closed circuit rebreather), or someone diving beyond training limits (PPL in IMC scenario).

So what is my point?

While I know that this type of analysis is horribly difficult for the folks doing it, I would encourage you to please, please, please share everything that you can. It really can make the difference in someone else living or dieing. And those of you asking the questions, please be aware of the difficulty in opening yourself up for criticism like this. I can tell you I spent months second guessing myself, could I have done anything more to save him? Should I have recognized he had a problem sooner?

Anyone that shares experiences like this with us should be held in the highest regard. They are contributing directly to our knowledge that very likely could save one of our lives some day.

-Dan

BTW, if anyone really cares about the details, they can google my name and read more than they probably want to know.
 
I've read all the OP's posts, and I've yet to see where he "screwed up" or made any kind of mistake. :confused:

Taking it flying again after the second incident with the engine is probably beyond my personal comfort zone... but someone point out the huge error here that everyone is talking about.
 
What a story, glad it ended well!

I never judge/chastise in these situations because it could be my turn in the very next flight...you never know.

If pilots much better than most (if not all) of us have managed to back themselves into tight situations, then it can happen to anyone.
 
10 or so years ago, prior to moving to FW aircraft, I was an Army maintenance test pilot on the CH-47. Part of my job was to fly aircraft other people wouldn't or couldn't.

Obviously you don't just jump in and go fly in any aircraft that's having problems, but at some point you're going exhaust all of your troubleshooting steps and reach the end of your experience/skill at troubleshooting a problem. It sounds like the OP did work though that process. You might be able to go back now and discuss what might have been missed, but he obviously felt that it was time to go fly. I've been there several times myself, and all you can do is your best. In the helicopter there are alot of moving parts that can kill you, but at least we could ground run and come to a hover to test things to a point prior to committing to forward flight.

Here's where MedFlightDoc got caught: When you're on a test flight with a problem that you have been unable definitively indentify, you're goal is to replicate to problem so that you can find and fix it. If you can?t get the problem to show itself your test flight is inconclusive and you?re back to troubleshooting. You must operate that way for the entire flight. With that in mind you have to remember that MURPHY is your copilot on the test flight. If you get even a bit complacent in your preparations or during the performance of the test flight Murphy is gonna jump up and bite you. Relax a bit and get outside glide distance from the runway, well that?s the moment the engine is going to fail, at that worst possible time.

Once the engine stopped it sounds like Ryan did a darn good job controlling the airplane and walking away from the engine failure. We should all commend him for being willing to so openly share the experience, as I said before what he?s doing now could save someone else later. Take his hard earned lesson to heart. On a test flight of this type assume that what can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment. Plan out your intended actions for the flight and execute that plan with precision. If it can be helped, don?t leave any opening for Mr. Murphy!

Doug
 
Then, at probably the worst possible time, getting to pattern altitude or slightly below, about 2 miles from airport (I had drifted out and away while descending) then engine stumbles badly. Quick electric fuel pump on, get a brief surge, then stumbles again with loss of significant RPM. Cycle it again quickly while turning back in towards airport and get a brief surge and then the engine DIES. At this point my speed had started to decay while I was trying to troubleshoot at very low altitude, so I abandoned further efforts to relight in order to concentrate on flying.
Click to expand...

I have a question, and this is not related to anything but the emergency engine-out procedure you utilized.

I was taught that in the event of an engine failure, you should do the following:
1) Whatever you just did, undo it (if you turned off the boost pump and the engine quit, for example, turn it back on; if you had just switched tanks, switch back; etc.); and, if that fails or you haven't recently "done something", then
2) Mixture rich; fuel boost pump on; switch tanks.

If those don't work, set up for an engine-out landing and execute it.

You say you turned the fuel pump on, then off, then on, etc. Did you switch tanks? Did you enrichen the mixture (or was it already rich)?

Others may have different training on engine-out procedures, and I'd like to hear them, too...so we can all learn what might work and how others were taught to handle this situation.

Sounds like excellent work getting the plane on the ground *under control*...well done.
 
To take the thought one step further, i was taught to keep my finger on the boost pump switch for a few seconds after turning it on or off. That way if something does happen, your finger is already there to reverse it. Same thing with fuel selector, keep your fingers on it for a few seconds after.
 
Slosh?

So now that the tanks have been removed and inspected visually, can anyone confirm that the tanks were sloshed? Was there evidence of peeling slosh in the visual inspection?
 
Just for the record, I've seen intermittent stumbling like this on a 172. The cause was a loose electrode tab on the rotor of a slick mag. It would work it's way in and out of position.
 
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